Situated in northeast Vietnam, Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is known for its thousands of limestone karst islands in various shapes and sizes of which there are between 1,960 and 2,00 of them. The limestone in this bay has gone through continual change over the past 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments.

During the fall the lure of greens and reflections studded with the reds and yellows were mesmerizing while I enjoyed a brief moment in time at a lake on the Vanderbilt Estate near Asheville.

This is one of the most amazing properties to visit, so if you’re in the area it’s a must. The Vanderbilts are an American family that through Cornelius Vanderbilt created great success with the shipping and railroad empires. The family expanded into numerous other areas of industry and philanthropy. Cornelius Vanderbilt’s descendants went on to build several grand mansions, one of which was the palatial Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina.

Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone exudes such vivid colors around the edges of the mineral-rich water in the spring. These are the result of microbial mats which tend to be mainly orange and red in the summer, and usually dark green in the winter. The center of the pool is sterile due to extreme heat.

The Grand Prismatic Spring microbial mat, which is a multi-layered sheet of microorganisms, surrounds the hot springs showing off its many vivid colors. The intrinsic blue center of the pool (upper right of the photo) is completely sterile due to the extreme heat. The hot spring discharges an estimated 560 US gallons (2,100 liters) of 160 °F (70 °C) water per minute.

In midsummer water lillies cover Isa Lake in Yellowstone National Park.

The lake is situated right on the Continental Divide at Craig Pass between Old Faithful and West Thumb. Geographers call it a drainage divide or boundary between two watersheds, one which flows to the Atlantic Ocean, the other to the Pacific Ocean.

A flash of color while walking from Artists Point on Uncle Tom's Trail to the Lower Falls in Yellowstone. This steep trail takes you from the top of Yellowstone's Grand Canyon down to the base of the 308-foot-high Lower Falls.

The walk down 500 feet is fairly strenuous, however, in 1905 Uncle Tom lowered you by rope!

View of part of the Upper Terraces showing the calcium carbonate deposits created after the hot spring water has cooled. Getting about the complex is easy as boardwalks cover nearly 1.75 miles around the Upper and Lower Terraces.

Mammoth Hot Springs are located just south of the North Entrance to Yellowstone, near the town of Gardiner in Montana.

Mammoth Hot Springs is a complex of hot springs which has been created over thousands of years in Yellowstone National Park. It is on a hill of travertine – limestone deposited by mineral springs where calcium carbonate is formed as the hot water cools and is then deposited.

This is the top of Palette Spring Terraces which are part of the Upper Terraces, which also include: Opal Terrace, Liberty Cap, Minerva Terrace, Cleopatra Terrace, Jupiter Terrace, Main Terrace and Canary Spring.

Crabtree Falls is a 70 ft. cascade located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, north of Asheville and near to Linville Falls. It’s usually a gentle flowing delicate waterfall, however, after a spate of hurricanes in the fall of 2017, the falls were in full flow.

A park ranger informed us that a mother bear and her two cubs are regularly to be seen playing at the base of these falls – sadly not while we visited!

Dry Falls is flowing fast after a series of hurricanes and heavy rainfall that hit the area in late 2017. This weather pattern has also caused many leaves to fall earlier than usual, and so the expected vivid fall colours we are familiar with in these mountains is not being displayed.

The word “Nantahala” is a Cherokee word meaning “Land of the Noonday Sun”.

Dry Falls (aka. Upper Cullasaja Falls) is a popular 65-foot (20.1 m) waterfall located 3 miles northwest of Highlands. Dry Falls flows on the Cullasaja River and is part of a series of waterfalls on an 8.7-mile (14 km) stretch of the river that includes Bridal Veil Falls and eventually ends with Cullasaja Falls.

As the river flows over a protruding bluff, and when the waterflow is low, it is possible to walk safely behind the waterfall and keep fairly dry.